The Amish Bride of Ice Mountain (4 page)

He went to his bookshelf and idly chose Dickens’s
A Tale of Two Cities
. He opened to the first page: “It was the best of times . . .” Then he slid the rose petal carefully between the pages and closed the book. Who knew? It might make a great keepsake, a petal of memory long gone that he could share with his grandchildren. He glanced back to his bed . . . but not her grandchildren. Never hers.

Chapter Four

She was dreaming
.It was hot and her dress weighed heavy upon her. She was in the blueberry patch, seeking cool respite from the day. She recognized the professor coming toward her. He seemed shy but intent somehow. He reached out and caught her hand in his. Then he wet his lips; she bit hers. She’d wanted him to come to her like this for weeks, wanted his blue eyes to be intense and dark, wanted his body to rule where his mind did not. She knew it was sinful,
jah
, that he’d soon be gone, but then he dipped his head toward her. He placed her hand along his lean hip and rocked his weight forward. It seemed that her blood slowed between heartbeats as he inched closer and then his mouth was on hers, slow at first, then seeking. She put her hand up to the warmth of his throat and lifted her gaze to meet his eyes, only to stare into the sweating, distorted face of Isaac Mast. She screamed and tried to fight from his grasp, but he held her tight and she could not get away.

 

 

Jude knocked his head on the bottom of the bunk when her scream woke him from a fitful sleep. It was dark in the cabin and he’d been sleeping on the floor. Now he hopped to his feet and felt in desperation for Mary as she struggled on the bed.

“Mary, Mary, what is it?”

She trembled beneath his hands, her hair slipping through his fingers like ocean waves. He knew he was affected by her, never would have let himself make out with her in the first place if he wasn’t, and he hated to see her upset. He put a knee on the bed and half turned from her, but she grasped at his arm.

“Mary, sweetheart. Let me turn up the lamp, okay?”

She continued to hold him, putting her mouth against the sleeve of his shirt, and he felt her teeth chatter. He fumbled with the lamp, got it going, then moved to sit beside her, drawing her into his arms. She was half-in, half-out of his sleeping bag and her eyes still held that stark look of somewhere between dreaming and waking. He kissed her instinctively on the forehead and she turned to meet his mouth with her own. He heard the strangled sound that came from his own throat as if far in the distance and slanted his head to deepen the kiss.
Comfort, you idiot. Comfort her.

But when she twined her arms around his neck and clutched at his hair, he knew he needed to stop.
Must stop. Must
. He broke away with a painful gasp, his breathing ragged. “Mary, it’s all right. It’s all right. You were dreaming. That’s all.”

She whimpered and pushed closer to him, as if she were trying to burrow inside his shirt. “It—it was Isaac, not you. I thought we were kissing that day, but then it was him.
Ach
, Jude, I was so scared.”

I’m scared too . . . scared to death. What am I going to do with a wife, an
Amisch
wife who makes my arms ache and my mouth burn? Never touch her. Just never touch her.
He stiffened with resolve and tried to move from her.

“Please, Professor,” she begged.

“Please sit here with me for a minute until I fall back to sleep. I want to sleep. I promise. I want it all to go away when I wake up.”

“All of it?” he couldn’t help asking.

“Mmm-hmm . . .” She laid her head on his shoulder and he resolved to sit for a minute or two, stiff and unresponsive.

 

 

The song of the first morning bird woke her and she realized that she was snuggled tight against the professor’s side. His white shirt was half-undone and she ducked her head away from the glimpse of his tanned chest. His blue-jeaned legs were tangled around the sleeping bag and his breathing fell slow and even near her ear. She tried to remember how they had got this way, and then the horror of the nightmare came back to her. She remembered Jude holding her, and now as she adjusted her neck with the slightest movement, she found his blue eyes, languid and sleepy.

“Hello, beautiful,” he whispered.

She felt herself flush at his words and he grinned, a secret, knowing smile that did something to her insides.

“Hello.”

He blinked then, almost as if coming to himself, and he pulled away from her, rolling off the bunk. He stood up and ran a hand through his hair, then grabbed his spectacles from the bedside table and hastily buttoned his shirt.

“You—uh—had a bad dream and I, um . . .”

“You slept by my side, Jude. Thank you.”

He nodded. “Right. That’s all right.” He clapped his hands together. “Looks like the stew will be dried out, but how about some fresh scrambled eggs?”

“I really can get it for you,” she said.

“No. I insist.” He smiled at her, grabbed an old basket, and headed outside, leaving her deep in her thoughts.

 

 

“My girl, how’s my girl?”

Jude looked up as the anxious voice of his new father-in-law cut across his thoughts.

Undoubtedly after the night’s passing, the mountain’s amazing and mysterious communication grapevine had brought news to Abner about Mary and Isaac Mast.

“Mary’s fine.” Jude set the basket on the grass and rose to his feet.

Abner passed a ham-like hand across his brow, tilting back his straw hat. “
Gut . . . gut
. I heard you ran Isaac Mast off the mountain—saved me the trouble.”

“I thought you would take the matter up with the bishop first, but I wasn’t in the mood to wait,” Jude explained. “I should have let your community handle it maybe.”

“
Nee
, we’ve looked aside many a time, given the boy many chances over the years. He’s started fires, run moonshine, everything, and now this . . .”

Jude felt surprise yet again at the ways of the
Amisch
of the Appalachians. They were so much more a morally driven people than some other cultures, balancing right and wrong, trying to find ways to help their young along but without over-coddling. If Abner said Mast had been given chances, it had been more than a few.

“Good.” Jude gave his father-in-law an impassive stare. “An attempted rape—I hope he runs to the devil or I’ll see him in prison where he belongs.”

Abner nodded. “I guess I’ll go back to the cabin, then; calm the
buwes
. They wanted to track Isaac down like a deer.”

“I heard that, Abner King, and I tell you that my
buwe
had better come back soon and with no problems about it!”

Jude glanced at the wooded path and saw Mahlon Mast stomp toward them. The tall
Amisch
man was Isaac’s
fater
and had never been receptive to Jude’s presence on the mountain. Other members of the community described Mahlon as “overly conservative” and a family leader who kept his son and wife away from many community gatherings.

“That ‘boy’ is a grown man who nearly raped my wife,” Jude said with an even calmness he wasn’t feeling. The elder Mast had a wild look in his eyes, something driven and fervent, that must have transmitted itself to his son.

Mast gave Jude a hard poke in the chest. “You done married a witch; it’s hexed ya are, and you can’t see nor feel it.”

Jude took a step nearer to the belligerent older man, only to have Abner King come in between them. “Mahlon Mast, I’ve knowed you since we was
buwes
and I know ye fear the hex of a witch, always have. But that’s my girl ye’re talkin’ about, and a
gut
and honest woman she is. Beauty don’t make no witch of a person, and mebbe ye’re a mite jealous that yer own ain’t that but homely.”

Jude had to hide a grim smile. His new father-in-law could hit the mark when he wanted and Mahlon Mast struggled visibly to control his temper.

“Now, go on wi’ ye,” Abner growled, finishing the encounter and dismissing the other man. “Else
Derr Herr
may bring upon you all that you fear.”

Mahlon’s face took on a reddish hue as his eyes darted furtively about. Then he turned and stomped off back into the woods.

“That’s a strange man,” Jude observed.

“
Jah
. Always was. But it’s nuthin’ to trouble Mary about. I’ll go on home now.”

Jude cleared his throat and nodded. “Mary and I—we’ll be over today for a visit.”

“Gut.”
Abner frowned up at him. “
Gut
, then.”

Jude wanted to say something to the other man, something about what a wonderful daughter he’d raised, but found the words wouldn’t come. So he waited until he was alone once more, then set about gathering the rest of the eggs for breakfast.

Chapter Five

Mary felt the cool earth of the worn path beneath her bare feet and soaked in the sensations of the bumps and roots, the pressed grass and the soft moss. Her husband followed her as they made their way to her home—her old home. She knew a clutch of anxiety in her chest as they approached the small, hardwood cabin. It was here that she’d been born and her mother had died, here that she’d grown, knowing every knot in the wood of the brief front porch, and here that she’d depart for other places, another home, for as long as she could hold her husband . . . She pushed away the thought.
Nee
—she must not worry about keeping him but about building a wedding into a marriage like
Grossmuder
May had said.

He caught her fingers in his warm hand as they came in view of the cabin. Mary sighed. The place appeared unkempt, unlike the rather pristine
Amisch
farms she’d read of in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. There were piles of scrap metal, wood, and various outbuildings scattered around the yard, but her mother’s beautiful wild pink roses still clambered nearly halfway up the house, covering one railing and reaching for another. The roses redeemed the bland surroundings, and she knew that her
daed
had planted them when her mother had carried her—the mother she had never known but whom she had often spent hours trying to picture. It had made her wish, on more than one occasion, that the Amish believed in taking personal photographs and that those images would not be considered graven.

She felt Jude looking down at her as they walked into the clearing and she smiled up at him.

“You’ll miss this,” he said.

She shook her head. “Only the roses.”

“Your mother’s, right?”

“You have a
gut
memory. I didn’t even think I mentioned my
mamm
much to you.”

He pulled her to a slow stop and she felt herself tremble in expectation in spite of herself. Maybe he’d kiss her again . . .

Instead, his blue eyes were dark, serious. “Mary, I’m lots of things—maybe things you wouldn’t like if you knew. But one good thing about me is that I remember details about the people I like.”

She curled her fingers tighter into his hand and swallowed hard. “And do you—like me?”

He didn’t smile but his eyes burned like blue flame. “I like you,” he whispered. “Very much.”

“
Ach
, I like you too,” she couldn’t help exclaiming, then blushed at her forwardness. Though this was the man she was married to,
nee
, wedded to—it was all very confusing.

He skimmed a long finger around the curve of her jaw. “I like you, Mary. And I like you enough to remember the time you told me of your
mamm
. Do you recall the field of goldenrod?”

She nodded, feeling lulled by the timbre of his rich voice. She saw herself standing on the verge of the bright field they’d entered during one of his note-taking rambles about the mountain. A slight summer breeze had soothed the back of her warm neck and she’d watched him wade into the yielding plants, a sea of color against his lean waist.

He was so beautiful . . .
Gott
made him so beautiful.
She hadn’t wanted to intrude on his pollinated swim until he turned to her and laughed, arms extended. “Come on in, Mary.”

She’d put a cautious foot against the first green stem, feeling it give with ease. Then she concentrated, head down, on each step forward.

“Mary, this is beautiful. What’s wrong?”

She’d swallowed, trying to stuff down the fragmented thoughts that sprang to life inside her. “Nothing’s wrong.”

He still smiled. “Mary. I’ve known you for two months now. Tell me.”

“I’ll sound strange,” she muttered, stretching her fingertips to the golden-yellow flower nearest her.

“I like strange.”

She nodded. She could believe that... “I—well, I feel as though my mother had been here once . . . I don’t know. I feel her.”

He came toward her, his handsome brow arched in thought. “I know your mother died, but you’ve never said when or how. Is she buried near here?”

“
Nee . . .
nothing like that. She died giving me life—it’s that simple.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest and hugged herself protectively.

“Oh, no, sweet Mary. There’s nothing simple about that.” His voice had dropped and he stood in front of her, only three stalks between them.

She’d wet her lips and stared down at his large work boots, tamping down the plants.

“Mary,” he whispered. “Her death wasn’t your fault, your doing. And if you can feel some sense of her here, then be happy that whatever nothingness rules this world saw fit to give it to you.”

“Nothingness?” She tasted the strange word on her tongue and felt sad.

He’d shrugged and reached to brush at a stray tendril of her hair with the back of his hand.

“It doesn’t matter . . . but you do.”

Mary blinked out of her reverie and realized they stood poised on the damp grass surrounding her cabin home. She looked up at Jude and felt his eyes, kind but questioning, and she had to look away.

 

 

“So, she’s yours now, is she?”

Jude swallowed the words that Abner King’s statement riled up in him. He didn’t want a confrontation on Mary’s last visit home, and he didn’t want to discuss the activities, or lack thereof, of his wedding night with his grim father-in-law.

“Mary is her own . . . not mine to possess.”
Though I’d like to . . . every inch of her; our hands clasped together, little breathy sounds coming from her mouth with the taste of summer, me coming apart and . . . Am I out of my mind? What the devil is wrong with me? Restraint, you idiot. Restraint.

Abner regarded him with a dry look. “Uh-huh.”

Jude felt himself flush and turned away from the other man, looking around the main cabin room to distract himself.

“Please,
Daed
, we’re going tomorrow. I don’t want any fighting.” Mary pressed her skirts against herself in a pleading gesture.

“Tomorrow?” her father exploded. “I thought to have these last two weeks with my girl—especially after what happened with Isaac Mast.”

Jude drew a deep breath. “I’m sorry—I wish there was something else to do, but I believe time will be a healing factor in this . . . what happened.”

Abner stepped in front of him in the cramped space of the cabin’s kitchen. “You remember,
schmart
man, that you owe my daughter a life of time, a life of love.”

Jude grimaced inwardly.
A life of time for a few kisses; hardly a fair exchange where I come from, but still . . .

“All right. All right.” Abner waved his thick hands. “Me and the
buwes
have a wedding present for y’uns at any rate. Joseph, bring it over.”

Joe King was tall and lanky and shouldered past Jude with a less-than-obvious bump, then returned to place a small box in Mary’s hands.

“
Ach, Dat
, I can’t,” she whispered.

Jude peered over her shoulder as she opened the box and an intricate carved scene of the mountain slowly slid upward, then clicked into place.

“That’s amazing.” Jude was sincere in his praise. The woodworking craftsmanship of the Mountain Amish was unsurpassed.

“It was carved by my
grossdaudi
when I was a very little girl,” Mary said. “It belongs to
Dat
.”

“And now to you—both of you.” Abner pulled a blue hankie from his pocket and blew. “I want you to remember the mountain. It’s in ya, daughter. But now you’ll have a
gut
reminder.”

Mary moved to kiss her father and Jude hung back as her
bruders
somehow encircled her. He felt a distinct lack of being part of the family but figured it was pretty much what he deserved . . .
Annulment. Annulment.

But then Mary moved and drew him close and he was surrounded by the reality of brotherhood, something he’d read about but had never known. He told himself he was being ridiculous when he had to clear his throat, but decided to enjoy this rare moment of life anyway.

 

 

Inside her small room, Mary took a moment to sit down on her single bed and let her fingers play over the stitching in the Nine Patch quilt she’d pieced when she was ten—three blocks over and three blocks down. So easy. It was soothing to touch the threads and to remember a time when knowing what to do meant simply obeying. Now that she would leave the mountain, she’d have to make her own decisions, and she wondered what the outside world would truly bring.

A soft knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. “
Kumme
in.”

Jude had to duck his head a bit to fit into the doorway but was then able to rise to his full height with only inches to spare against the beamed ceiling.

“Hi,” he said. “Am I disturbing you?”

She shook her head, though it was strange to see him in the intimacy of the center of her girlhood. She appreciated that he kept his eyes on her and didn’t appear to be looking around the room.

“Your
dat
wanted me to bring this satchel in to you.” He handed her a heavy, handled bag with faded brown flowers on its outside. “Do you want to pack alone?”

“Nee.”
She rose and gestured to the bed. “Please sit down. I’ll be quick.”

The small bed creaked under his tall weight and Mary turned to the shelf that held the store of procured books she’d read and reread over and over again throughout the years. Her hand hovered over the titles, then she chose her Bible, her mother’s cookbook, and
Wuthering Heights.

“Bring everything you want,” he urged. “I can fit some in my backpack.”

“This is enough for books. I’ve other things.” She moved to the carved wooden chest on the floor beneath the deep-set window and felt his eyes on her. She knelt down and opened the cherrywood lid, smelling the cedar shavings that she kept inside to protect against moths.

All of the sewing and quilting that she’d done since childhood in preparation for her marriage filled the chest. She was plunged into memories as she lifted pieces and thought of the women of the community who’d helped her over the years in learning the sewing and quilting arts.

She was fingering the scalloped edge of a pillowcase, not certain what to pack because she was setting up an unknown household, when she felt the professor’s touch on her arm as he knelt next to her. She felt surrounded by his presence, his scent, and her pulses began to race.

“I—I don’t know what to bring,” she confessed.

“You’ve made all of these things?” he whispered. “For the time you would have your own home?”

“Jah.”
She wondered at the disquiet in his voice and knew uncertainty in her heart once more.

 

 

Jude brushed his fingers against the snowy white fabric, matched with perfect white stitching, and wondered how he’d gotten to this place in his life. How could he rob this innocent girl of her hope chest and all that it represented? He felt a deep pain in his chest. He was a fraud.

“Mary, I . . .”

She turned to face him, her knees between his thighs. “It is all right, Jude. We are married. I understand that you—you do not belong here and I go willingly with you to see a glimpse of the world, your world. I can come back to this chest with those memories.”

He watched her lift her fine chin with a brave air and felt his throat throb. He reached his hand to her warm neck and, against his will, leaned forward, losing himself in the sincerity and truth in her eyes. Everything seemed to hang suspended in the pool of sunlight that encircled them from the window. He felt things slip away—time, remorse, what he should do . . . He touched his mouth to her forehead, as close to sacred as he could understand, trying to tell her how much he admired her courage. Then he allowed his lips to brush hers. Once . . . twice . . . like sips of water to a dying man.

He wasn’t prepared for her response or the onslaught of sensation that tore through his belly when she began to kiss him back.
Think
, his mind screamed, but it didn’t seem to matter. She pressed light fingertips against his chest and he deepened the kiss, hearing his own ragged breathing like a roaring in his ears.

“Mary?” Her father rattled the latch on the door and Jude felt himself crash back to earth with brutal force.

He gasped, nearly sick with desire, and grabbed the pillowcase she still clutched. “Bring it,” he managed between breaths. “For the love of God, bring anything you want.”